More Than I Can Bear by E.N. Joy

lie is uncovered you still have to end up dealing with the truth anyway. So I always ask folks, ‘Why not just go ahead and deal with the consequences of the truth in the first place and just get it over with?’” Pastor Margie raised her hands in the air and then let them drop as if it was a no-brainer.
    Pastor Margie’s last comment put a fear over both Norman and Paige. If they’d never experienced the fear of the Lord before, they had now. Sure God would forgive them for any sins and lies they committed, but Pastor Margie had just reminded them that consequences of their sins and lies would still be theirs to face and deal with. What would those consequences be? Jesus was the truth and the truth had made them free. Freedom was priceless, therefore they wanted to maintain that freedom and they wanted the baby Paige was carrying to inherit it as well. So before leaving that office, they thanked Pastor Margie, prayed with Pastor Margie, and then left, knowing exactly what their next move had to be . . . at least when it came to their parents.

Chapter Thirteen
    â€œA baby! Jesus Christ, Son of God! Oh, Mary, mother of God.” Mrs. Vanderdale placed her hand over her forehead and fell backward, knowing her husband would catch her fall before she could hit the floor.
    And even though this was one of Mrs. Vanderdale’s normal practices whenever she was faced with so-called devastating news, everyone still rushed to her aid. Miss Nettie fanned her while Stuart fetched her a glass of water. Norman, well, for the first time almost ever, this time Norman just stood there and watched everyone else make a fuss over his mother. She never even gave him the chance to tell her that the baby wasn’t his before she went off into her antics. Perhaps if she had they could have avoided this huge production.
    The longer Norman just stood there doing nothing, the more his mother felt she needed to do more of something, anything, to get a sympathetic reaction from her son. After all, he was the one responsible for this reaction of hers. How dare he within a week’s time bring more shocking news to her doorstep?
    Norman’s father walked his wife over to the couch where he laid her down. She took sips of the water Stuart had brought her. All the while Norman kept telling himself he’d made the right decision by not bringing Paige with him to break the news of her pregnancy to his mother. He had a feeling she was going to put on a show worthy of a high-priced Vegas show ticket.
    â€œHoney, please, pull yourself together,” Mr. Vanderdale pleaded with his wife.
    â€œOh, Norm,” Mrs. Vanderdale said to her husband, Norman Senior, “that son of yours is going to be the death of me yet. I swear to you!”
    Norman Senior looked at his son and shook his head. “You know your mother,” he mouthed, suggesting she didn’t mean the words that were coming out of her mouth. She was just being her dramatic, usual self.
    Yes, Norman did know his mother. He knew her very well. She’d always been a drama queen. It had kept things quite interesting in the Vanderdale household when he was coming up. But there had never been drama or issues when it came to skin color, creed, or race. Sure, Norman’s mother had come from the South and a long line of ancestors who’d done their share of slave trading, but that wasn’t how his household had been run. Everyone was equal. It had always been that way. Norman had never seen any signs of his mother having a prejudice against Black people. So he was baffled at her behavior this past week. Had there been any indication his mother would play the role of Fred Sanford and fake having a heart attack every other day, he would have never knowingly subjected Paige to that type of behavior, or himself for that matter.
    â€œMother, where is all this coming from, seriously?” Norman said, sounding as unsympathetic as ever.
    â€œOh,